Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an antibiotic, a process for the production thereof, an anticoccidiosis agent and a growth accelerating and feed efficiency increasing agent for domestic animals and fowls comprising the antibiotic as an effective ingredient and more particularly, this invention relates to a novel antibiotic 76-11, process for the production thereof which comprises culturing an antibiotic 76-11 producing microorganism belonging to the genus Actinomadura to separate and collect the antibiotic; an anticoccidiosis agent comprising the antibiotic as an effective ingredient; a growth accelerating and feed efficiency increasing agent for domestic animals and fowls comprising the antibiotic as an effective ingredient; a method for preventing and treating coccidiosis; a method for accelerating the growth of domestic animals and increasing feed efficiency; and feed for domestic animals and fowls comprising the antibiotic.
The inventors of the present invention, for the purpose of searching a new useful antibiotic, isolated a microorganism from soil collected in various places and studied an antibiotic produced by the microorganism. As a result, the inventors found that a new antibiotic 76-11 which has never been known in any published literature, was produced by a microorganism belonging to the genus Actinomadura and was accumulated in the cell and culture medium.
On the other hand, a coccidiosis is an infectious disease of domestic fowls caused by Protozoa belonging to the genus Eimeria and, causes in fowls scours and poor intake of nutrition and finally bring them death.
Oocyst which is the first generation of Protozoa is excreted with droppings, forms spores and infects fowls one after another. Typical Protozoa described above includes Eimeria tenella, Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria necatrix, Eimeria brunetti, Eimeria maxima, and so on. Fowls infected with Protozoa lose their commercial value. Therefore, the prevention of coccidiosis is a matter of industrical importance. Accordingly, various kinds of preventive and curative means have heretofore been proposed and widely studied. Examples of the proposed agent include arsenic, nitrofuran, or bisphenol compounds, sulfa drugs, thiazine, quinoline, pyridine or guanidine derivatives, and so on. However, these agents are not effective enough and further, some new protozoans having a resistance to these agents appear. Accordingly, there has been a need of a new effective agent.
Under these conditions, the inventors have conducted a study of a medical agent effective against coccidiosis of fowls and found that the antibiotic 76-11 is extremely effective against coccidiosis of fowls.
Some antibiotics have been added to feed in order to accelerate the growth and to increase egg-laying of domestic animals and fowls. However, due to the application to animals of common antibiotics to a man and animals, resistant strains appear, which has caused some fear of harmful effect on medical cure of humans. Further, a man also have another fear of intake the antibiotic applied to and accumulated in the animal body when eating the meat or the products.
The inventors studied growth accelerating agents having none of the disadvantages described above and found that the administration of the antibiotic 76-11 to domestic animals or fowls accelerates the formation of propionic acid in digestive organs and inhibits the increase in viscosity of rumen liquid. On the other hand, it is known that propionic acid is superior to acetic or butyric acids in the coefficient of energy utilization of volatile fatty acid in a living animal body. From the facts described above, the inventors demonstrated that the antibiotic 76-11 would be an excellent agent being capable of accelerating the growth of domestic animals and fowls and increasing feed efficiency thereof.
The inventors have now accomplished the present invention based on the above discoveries.